Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Color Me...

Well hey! I'm back on track. And for today, I'm going to take the track and run with it. Maybe I should always write when I'm freshly showered.

Today, we're writing about colors we love.
Ansel Adams' prints, when viewed in person, taught me how many different shades and intensities of black and silver and yes, even grey there are. Each little nuance made a difference to his pictures, and even then that wasn't "in colors."

If you want simplicity I'll usually stop at orange and purple. Purple always won the day for me as a little girl and even now, as an adult, it's a frontrunner. Orange came along later. Orange I love for its audacity. Most of the time, orange is a color you can't look away from. It's pure sunshine and energy, and it sort of radiates. When I think of both together, I think of one of those electric sunsets that you get in the summer (or almost any time out in the desert) and the way the oranges fade to soft yellows, and the pinks deepen into purples and then blue-blacks.

The truth is, I love the electric blue of the sky in the mountains and the desert.
I love the rusty, dusty red of the red rock mesas.
I love the electric green that's bursting out of every corner right now, as spring is FINALLY springing here in Illinois, and I remember what a shock to the senses it was from the earth tones of the desert when I first came back to visit.
I love deep, unknowable, bold cobalt blue, the kind that you see when you peer into the center of a sapphire or lapis.
I love the bright pinks or bleeding reds that are so intense that camera sensors have a hard time figuring out how they work.
I love the soft, delicate yellow of yellow rose petals, that you want to wrap yourself in to sleep in the warm sun.
I love a bright, crisp white in the noon sun, and a perfect red against the dark of night.

I need color. I need energy. I need to be at once lilac purple, soft and fragrant and fleeting, as well as orange- bold, sharp, available and energetic. I need to have the depth of cobalt and the softness of rose petal yellow. I need the electric blue of the sky and the deep purple blacks to lull me to sleep. So favorite color? Yes.